CHRIS K. HO

IN COLLABORATION WITH GERTRUDE

Privileged White People, Coming of Age in the 90s. Friday January 24, 2014, 8-9PM

Suzy Spence leads a discussion with artist Christopher K. Ho in a unique evening event in collaboration with Gertrude. Guests had the opportunity to experience Christopher K. Ho's work within the context of his studio, allowing for insight into the ways the artist’s recurring themes intertwine.

Ho uses writing, photography, painting and sculpture, moving fluidly among media. Born in Hong Kong, he was raised in Los Angeles, California and later attended boarding school and Ivy League universities in the Northeast. A seemingly assimilated immigrant, he can play the dual role of insider/outsider, scrupulously observing privileged white society while never quite living in it. Such perspective also fuels his appraisals of dominant American culture.

Ho will sometimes borrow popular iconography from television, fashion, politics or art history; for example recent pieces include a large appropriated portrait of Bill Clinton titled, “First Black President,” and a digital recollaging of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece, “Demoiselles d’Avignon”. But as a conceptualist, Ho will also work earnestly to make original objects when the situation demands. For example in 2009 he took hiatius from the art world to live in a rustic studio in Colorado, where he made dozens of traditional oil paintings and a semi-autobiographical novella.

Ho’s intense meditations are mind-bending, but they are also quite personal, and come off with humor and wit. He wants to engage his audience; he is the opposite of the aloof intellectual.